So, just for fun, I had wanted to do a set of portraits juxtaposing a Roman Centurion with a red-plumed galea helmet against a modern punk rock warrior with a full-scalp mohawk. I envisioned the battle scene taking place on a rocky ridge cutting across an open field, with a dramatic, blood-red sunset in the background. Although a bit anachronistic, I decided to arm the Centurion with a battleaxe to create a metaphorical counterpart for the punk rocker’s guitar–the modern battleaxe. Now, it is worth mentioning that the metaphor isn’t all that deep. Unlike the punk rock vision of fighting the “system” with their guitars, the Roman military machine was, in fact, the “system” of their time. So, in reality, the scene would really juxtapose a modern rebel against the ancient “man.”

Unfortunately, not only were we unable to come up with a galea, but on the evening I borrowed two flashes for the shoot (a 580ex II and a 430ex, both Canon speedlites) from Life Story Photography, an unexpected storm rolled into the area. By the time the storm dissipated, it was dark. So, we ended up shooting a bunch of silly portraits inside the Okamoto’s garage. Thankfully, the white garage door provided a nice ceiling for bounce flash. We had to use the space creatively, but we ended up with a handful of good portraits–I especially like the one’s showing off Stevo’s Japanese tattoos with him holding his samurai sword.

After the storm, we did end up trying the original shoot idea on the driveway. The wet pavement created a kind-of-cool effect. Certainly it wasn’t my original vision, but it was a fun shoot nonetheless.

Mini Golfing with the Junior Highers from OnFire Youth Ministry in Myerstown. We were at a mini golf course in Lebanon, PA. I did some hand HDR merging to regain some of the clouds without having a flash. Kinda fun dramatic look.

Just a quick practice session blending various exposures. We didn’t take much time, so I didn’t properly expose my subject on all of them (hence the reason my wife looks like a magazine cut-out in some of the pictures), but I just wanted to see if could done to create a cool effect. Some of the photos consist of Adobe Bridge HDR merged background (like the one where the clouds don’t line up), but I also did some section-specific hand blending on the far away ones to get the exposure balance I was looking for.